‘I have no desire to harass this woman’: Convicted killer vows to carry on controversial lawsuit against victim’s widow, seek transfer to Canada

Larry Shandola vows to carry on lawsuit against victim’s widow

Describing his murder conviction in 2001 as a “travesty,” a Canadian man serving a 31-year sentence in the U.S. for the 1995 killing of his former friend and business partner has vowed to carry on with a controversial lawsuit against the dead man’s widow.

Vancouver-born Larry Shandola, 62, told Postmedia News from a Washington State prison that he’ll appeal last week’s dismissal of his suit against Paula Henry — whose husband Robert was murdered “execution-style” in a Tacoma, Wash., parking lot 18 years ago — and keep trying to overcome her objections to Shandola’s requested transfer to a Canadian prison.

“I have no desire to harass this woman,” said Shandola, insisting that his legal action — which has prompted outrage in Washington and a push for new restrictions on prisoners’ rights to sue — was prompted by “false” statements made by Henry and three others in letters to the state corrections department protesting the inmate’s proposed transfer to Canada.

I have no desire to harass this woman

“I was convicted of murdering her husband,” Shandola said in the interview. “I steadfastly maintain that I did not commit that crime.”

In 2011, after several failed appeals to overturn his conviction, Shandola applied to be transferred to a Canadian prison to be closer to his family in British Columbia and increase his chances of being freed some day.

“I’d exhausted my appeals. I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I was just tired, I was burned out,” Shandola said from Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, Wash., about 70 kilometres west of the state capital Olympia.

“So I decided I’d opt for an International Treaty Transfer and go back to my own country, where we still have parole, and I’d have the faint-hope clause and have a chance to get out.”

The prospect that Shandola might be moved to Canada and win earlier release than in the U.S. led Paula Henry to register her opposition with the Washington Department of Corrections. Two of her friends did the same, as did Lew Cox, executive director of the U.S. victims-advocacy organization Violent Crimes Victims Services.

The transfer bid was rejected.

All four of those who opposed the transfer were named in a December lawsuit filed by Shandola. The suit was condemned as “frivolous” and a form of harassment by Henry’s lawyer, John Ladenburg, and dismissed last week as “inappropriate” by a Washington judge.

The Tacoma News-Tribune, commenting on Shandola’s lawsuit, also editorialized in favour of proposed legislation backed by two state lawmakers that would curb prisoners’ rights to sue victims of violent crimes or their families.

The lawsuit is outrageous

“The lawsuit is outrageous,” the newspaper stated, “but it’s accomplishing exactly what Shandola probably hopes it would do: allow him to continue inflicting pain and suffering from behind prison walls.”

But Shandola said in the interview that he’ll appeal last week’s dismissal of the suit based on his view that the letters filed against his transfer contained inaccurate information that unfairly derailed his return to Canada.

“I was trying to get those people to retract those letters,” said Shandola. “We are definitely appealing, and I can’t believe this (ruling) will stand…. I believe this will be overturned, but it will take a month or two.”

Ladenburg had told Postmedia News last week that he anticipated Shandola would launch an appeal even if his lawsuit was tossed out by a judge, which is what happened on Friday in a Tacoma courtroom.

Shandola’s statement of claim highlights Paula Henry’s “false” assertions about the Canadian prisoner, including her contention that, “I know he will kill me,” “He is a skilled sociopath,” and “He stalked me and tried to intimidate me for five years” after her husband’s death.

Shandola claims in the suit that Henry’s statements have no basis in fact despite his murder conviction. The lawsuit document also repeated his longstanding contention that he is “innocent of the murder of Robert Henry” and that he was “remorseful for having inadvertently harmed his friend” during an argument on New Year’s Eve 1993, which ended with Shandola punching Robert Henry in the face.

A 1994 lawsuit against Shandola over that incident was won by Robert Henry about one week before he was shot to death on Sept. 11, 1995, in the parking lot of the Tacoma electrical company where he worked as an executive.

While Shandola was identified at the time as a suspect because of his fractious business dealings and subsequent legal dispute with Robert Henry, he wasn’t arrested until 2001.

There simply was no evidence connecting him with the gun, period

Investigators said the breakthrough came after the 1998 discovery of a shotgun dumped in brush near the scene of Henry’s murder, which detectives eventually traced to a Washington Arms Collectors Association gun show believed to have been attended by Shandola prior to the killing.

Though the potential link to the murder weapon was a key part of the prosecution case, Shandola’s defence lawyer, Brett Purtzer, stated after his client’s 2001 conviction that: “There simply was no evidence connecting him with the gun, period.”

Shandola’s sister, Joanne Jordan, told Postmedia News that the family still believes he was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and strongly supports his transfer to a Canadian prison.

Among the letters filed in support of his transfer was one from NDP MP Alex Atamanenko, who represents the B.C. Southern Interior riding in which Jordan lives, she said.

“If he’s here,” she said of Shandola, “we can visit him much easier than having to go across the border” and travelling the 10-hour route to Stafford Creek prison.

“Larry’s always been my hero,” said Jordan, 59, describing the bond between her, her older brother and another brother as unbreakable despite Shandola’s murder conviction.

“We’re very close, the three of us. We always have been,” she said. “When we go to visit him in prison, we laugh, we have a good time. We’re very closely connected as a family. We love each other a lot and we say that to each other.”

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